1.  Lost

2.  Left

3.  Legerdemain

I can do this, I thought, swigging coffee at 6am as I emptied the dishwasher and put washing away. Son 1 aged 5 woke up at about 0630. I put him in front of CBeebies while I had a shower. Son 2 aged 2 cried. I did his nappy, dressed him, dressed Son 1, did my hair and make up and got them down for breakfast. Eaten. No spills. Tonicked.  Hair and teeth brushed.   Out of the house on time, a Good Morning to the Man from the Paper Shop with his fluorescent satchel, and a wave to the recycling men as we passed them at the bottom of The Terrace.  We drove to School singing Doll On A Music Box from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Son 2’s current favourite. We had enough time to park up the Muddy Path. We got out of the car. “Son 1, where’s your school bag?” I checked the seats, the footwells and the boot.  With a slowly dawning dread, I realised I’d put the school bag on the road behind the car while I seatbelted the children in.  Not the end of the world, but next to it was the Nappy Bag. In the Nappy Bag was my card wallet - bank cards, credit cards, loyalty cards, library cards - phone and purse.  And not even on the pavement… on the road. Six or seven cars down from The House. With the recycling men heading on up towards them only minutes away.

The School let me use their phone. The only number I knew was The Man’s. “What do you expect me to do… I’m in France!” Ring the neighbours, I suggested. He has a new phone and his Simcard isn’t working yet.  I drove back. What’s the worst that can happen, I thought.  I will have to cancel a few credit cards and borrow money from Nanna till new ones arrive.   I can get a new phone. It’s Not The End Of The World.  Son 2 fell asleep on the trip back. I double-parked outside The House and sprang from the car. On the doorstep was the organic veg box. With the school bag and nappy bag, contents intact, on top. 

Son 2 and I had a low-key day. We visited one Wednesday Mum at home, and then went round the other’s for lunch.  Afterwards, I drove into The Town, went to the Joke Shop and bought Son 1 a 5+ magic kit and a 99p magic wand.  I put it in his schoolbag and gave it to him when we picked him up. “Where’s my magic wand?” In the car, I said. “Does it have powers?” he asked on the way back. “It’s a toy wand,” I said. “See how you get on with it.”  Back home, we found the magic wand makes bits of magic tricks disappear. “Don’t open the bag with the tricks in until I’ve got Son 2 to bed. You’ll lose the pieces.” Well by the time I’d left Son 2 we were down a rubber pencil and two of our Find-The-Lady white balls.  The balls re-appeared. Son 1 can just about do a swords-through-the-coin trick, and he LOVES the magic paddle.   “Who was the super-good person who helped us with the bags, Mummy?” he asked.   I have considered the suspects.  The neighbours knew nothing. The recycling men - wouldn’t have stopped to look at the bags.  The organic veg man - I didn’t see his van. Step forward…  someone who often sees us leaving for School, who saw us pull away, and who Knows Where We Live.  I think our Secret Hero is the Paper Shop Man.

1.  Flowers Are Red

2.  The Fastcoach

3.  Wordcount

0530.  Son 2 aged 17m stood in his cot and bellowed. I pelted down and tried to get him to go back to sleep.  Fan on.  Snuggles in bed.  Lie still.  He kept trying to crawl over to the bedside table to look for a drink.  At 0610 we were Up.  Son 1 aged 4y 4m said he wanted to watch telly upstairs, but stayed down with us singing Nursery Rhymes and playing with Son 2’s puppets.  We have an extra verse in  Baa Baa Black Sheep: “Mummy’s got two little booooyyyys, and Son 1 and Son 2 are their names.”  “That used to just be about me, didn’t it?”  said Son 1.  Up until 17 months ago, I used to sing: “Mummy’s got a little booooyyy, and Son 1 is his name.”  As soon as Son 2 arrived, I upgraded the song.  Just as I was admiring Son 1’s ability to remember things from when he was two years old he said: “They wouldn’t let me sing my special verse at my Old Nursery.”  I expect they made him colour inside the lines of drawings as well.

Son 1 and I planned to do a Big Shop after The Office, so I’d already warned Wonder Nanny that we’d be late.  I was a little bit…er… late picking Son 1 up.  I parked up the Muddy Path so he could enjoy his woodland walk back to the car.  And halfway came those four dread little words “I-need-a-poo.”  Back to the Nursery.  Afterwards Son 1 dillied, dallied and dawdled all the way back to the car.  “Son 1 will you stop being such a slowcoach!”  “I think you should stop being a Fastcoach.”  Couldn’t agree more.  This is the child who has also brought us “sadpatch” and “naughtypatch” to go with “crosspatch.”   We got a Good Big Shop done, but we were embarrassingly late. We bought Wonder Nanny two bunches of flowers.

And upstairs to the  lounge when we got in.  Son 2 toddled up the stairgate, looked up and said “Allo Mama.”  Perfect.  Wonder Nanny and Son 1 both heard it and instantly commented.  His first sentence.  He’s beaten Son 1 to that.  Son 1’s first sentence was “Chocco?  Yeah?” lying on his nappy mat, looking up at me on Easter Bank Holiday Monday, after a day spent stuffing his face with sweets.  Son 1 had about 25 words by the time he was 18 months old.  Son 2 can do Mama, Dadda, Bye bye, allo, a  vowelly version of Son 1’s name, a good shot at Wonder Nanny’s name, na na for crocodile, rah for lion, tiger, dinosaur and bear.  An even louder RAH for parrot (he’s seen a vocal one at the Bird Park) ooo ooo for owl, oo oo (as in book) for dog. Mer for cow. mouth opening and closing for fish, wa wa for duck.  Son 1 had the proper words; Son 2 makes all his up.  i get the feeling no Nursery could stop him singing whatever he likes.

1.  First Flower

2.  Country Roads

3.  Night Nights

Son 1aged 4y 4m and I left for Nursery ten minutes earlier than usual.  He has had enough of The Pirate’s Hat And Other Stories… he has had enough of Horrid Henry.  So this morning it was the Famous Five and Treasure Island, free with a paper some time ago.  Son 1 calls it the Famous Fights.  “I wish I was called Georgina.  If I was called Georgina I will say everyone must call me George.”   He also wishes he had a boat, and an island.  And a dog of course.  We arrived in plenty of time, and so parked up the drive and walked down the Muddy Path.  And there, in among the sodden leaves, on a little clump of bright green foliage, was a single pale yellow primrose flower.  Spring Is Sprung.  

To make up for this morning, the roads were heaving this evening, so I decided to explore some back routes to get home.  Mistake.  Tiny, flooded, debris-strewn barely-maintained tracks switchbacking this way and that as the light faded.  We went for miles.  The Famous Five had found some Ingots in a dungeon on the Treasure Island.  A Baddy threatened to shoot Timmy the Dog.  We got back on the usual route and pulled round a group of three of four cars parked together at the side of the road, broken glass, crumpled bonnets, people milling.  Perhaps a Good Thing that we were a little later than them.

Son 2 aged 16m waved from the window as we pulled up outside the house (Thank You Parking Fairy.) He was on top form.  Laughing, squealing, insisting on being held and carried.  He mineswept Son 1’s leftover smoothie from the car, and ate nearly a whole satsuma from his picnic bag.  Son 1 refused tea but accepted a couple of pieces of fruit, and listened to the end of the Famous Five on a laptop upstairs.  Son 2 is still crying as soon as I say night night and leave him in his cot.  Son 1, who used to send The Man packing when I went to see him for his bedtime stories, now says “Oh Mummy, you’ve come at exactly the wrong time.”  He fell asleep during Fairy Child.

1.  Brown Silk

2.  Green Shoots

3.  A New Best Friend

My Wise And Wonderful Friend and I discussed fashion, weight, shoes, Work Clothes and designer vs High Street last night, as she Sat-Navved her way around a motorway closure.  Inspired, this morning I got out a lovely size-14 dress and jacket combo which I haven’t worn since Son 2 aged 16m came along.  And lo.  I was in. Before, it skimmed and fell and hung.  Now, it clings and creases and strains.  But with the jacket done up, and enough care getting in and out of cars I can get away with it.  And of course my personal stylist, aged 4y 4m,  approved:  “You look like a Princess.” 

Dropping Son 1 off at Nursery, we parked along the Muddy Path.  Son 1 now has to tiptoe around the sprouting daffodils… at some points he can barely get his little boy feet in the gaps between clumps.  Some have flower buds… some are six inches tall.  Among the leaves vivid green primroses are pushing through.  And little self-seeded camellia bushes have tight knobby buds.  The suit was for a meeting in The City, two hours’ drive away.  The sunshine was so bright I had to root round for my sunglasses as I drove.  I can’t remember the last time I wore them.  Blue sky all the way.  A fantastic morning.  Coming back the sun was so bright and low in the sky I couldn’t actually… er… see very much.  And still light at 1730.     

A Greek Night in a local bar.  Some friends had taken a couple of tables and invited us.  We were late.  (Late home, late bedtime, late out of the house…)  On arrival, the tables were settled, and we were at the end, next to a Business Contact of The Man’s, and a middle-aged couple who we didn’t know.  On the other side of them, the receptionist of a Business The Man uses… and then two Good Friends.  We ate and drank and talked.  I told my neighbour about Son 1 and Son 2 and then asked about her children.  Grown, she said.  A daughter  getting married in the Spring; a son, younger, in the Autumn.  The ages clicked.  The accent clicked.  The Man clicked too and leapt into the conversation: “I think this might be - ” “Are you Wonder Nanny’s In-laws-to-be?”  I asked.  She was at home baby-sitting.  Son 2 had been at my neighbour’s house that afternoon.  She thinks he’s lovely, and she loves his name.  The Town is Very Small Indeed.

1.  Manoeuvres In The Dark

2.  Jumping

3.  Jamming

i slept badly, got up in the end and did about 2 hours’ Office work in the middle of the night.  Not a good sign.  I got back to sleep and then Son 1 aged 4y 1m appeared and clambered into my side of the bed.  “You’llhavetoclimbover,” I mumbled, unable to move.  He climbed over, The Man got out the other side.  Head on the pillow, next to our heads.  Legs pointing downwards.  That is how you get 3 in a bed, Son 1.  If you continually insist on sleeping with your head against Mummy and your feet against Daddy then one of your parents can’t stay.    

Son 2 aged 14m was up at 0630.  I am craving time with him at the moment, so it’s great it’s the weekend.  A Nursery Day for Son 1, so another brisk take-no-prisoners-zoom-out-the-house morning.  The journey was fine, we got there in plenty of time and parked near the mushrooms, with Son 1 skipping and jumping along the path, making fun noises, skidding on the mud, stopping to peer into tree trunks and trace out the letters on the road signs.  Smiling and laughing “Look at me, I can jump as high as that branch”  Jump.  About two inches.  Full of joy, he’s an absolute delight.

Late to get him again. In the car on the way home he sang: “I’m happy all day, happy all night.  Happy, happy happy happy.  Sometimes I’m sad, sometimes I’m cross, but I’m happy happy happy all day.”  “That’s a lovely song, did you learn it at Nursery?”  “No, I maked it up.  I’m happy all day, happy all night, sometimes there’s a frown on my face but it’s all right. I’m happy at my friends’ house, I’m happy in my house, I’m happy in my Nursery, I’m happy in boats, I’m happy in shops, I’m happy shopping.”  All the way home.  Jamming to himself.  We got back, I parked, he got out of the car and ran down The Terrace singing “I’m happy all day, I’m happy all night.” Went into the house, lay on the floor with his cheek on the lino and carried on singing.